Spun Like Glass
by Cruelest Sea
Summary: It isn't the journey that matters but who we take it with, and even as a war ends, friendships remain strong. One shots: Point Of Divergence; Mass Penny; Entertaining Strangers; Patches Of Sunlight. Post-series.
1. Point Of Divergence

_"Casualties: many. Percentage of dead: not known. Combat efficiency: we are winning." - Colonel David M. Shoup_

_**Point of Divergence**_

He knew it was the one before he ever touched it, before he was even within arm's reach of it.

The paint was chipped on the left side, the "p" key partially broken and prone to sticking.

He approaches it with the uncertainty of meeting a friend after half a lifetime, eager to reunite, afraid to find they've changed and are no longer the same.

His hand brushes the keys with the lightest of touches, ignoring the cramp in his shoulder from the old wound.

He imagines he hears the sound of the keys typing, the sound of bombs whistling over head, explosions and shouted orders.

_He sees the folded articles Conley stuffs inside his uniform as he runs._

_His hands brush past the reporter's as they reach for the typewriter the second the bomb explodes._

_He can't breathe through the dust, choking and gasping as he fights to sit up._

_"Conley? Conley!"_

_There's a ragged cough and the older man crawls out from under the rubble._

_"You hurt?"_

_"I don't think so." His light hair is grey from the dust, adding years to his lined face. "You?"_

_For the first time he feels the twinge in his arm, a new wound a few inches below the round he took in the shoulder a month before._

_"A scratch. I'll live."_

_Conley starts tugging at the rubble, searching for the typewriter. He joins him, and it's his hands that find the machine._

_The left side is smashed, almost severed. The ribbon hangs limp and lifeless, tattered beyond use._

_He watches as Conley takes the damaged typewriter, cradles it against him like a child. There's a sheen of sharp tears in his eyes, a bitter anguish usually masked by the correspondent's ready smile._

_It's more than a machine to the man, he knows. It's his lifeblood that he spills as ink across a page. He's never been wounded, not like the others, but he bleeds even more than they do, an internal hemmorage somewhere within his chest, bleeds words instead of crimson so the people back home will know why they're fighting here, a thousand miles and more away from home._

_He can't stand the look in the man's eyes._

_"Its not so bad, Conley." He gathers up the machine. "I'll work on it. Gibson, too, he's good with machines. We'll fix it."_

_He helps the man up and they start back to the buildings._

He slides a hand beneath the typewriter, brushing past the tag and feeling the knotch in the metal, the deep dent.

_They'd fixed it, Gibson and he, almost as good as new._

_His heart feels strangely lighter as he hands it to the correspondent._

_There's a look of incredulous hope mingled with frail wonder as the man touches the keys as tenderly as he'd touch an infant. His fingers find the hole on the side, forehead creases._

_"It was a chunk of shrapnel. We dug it out but it left a gash."_

_"You were standing on the left." The older man says quietly._

_"Yeah. I guess it blocked the worst of it. Looks like that bundle of keys saved my life." He grins but Conley's face is serious._

_"Nothing without a purpose, Pete." The smile, a shadow of it's usual vibrancy, but there none the less, plays at the corners of his mouth._

_"I'll never get rid of it, you know. It's seen too much with me. It's become like an arm or a leg, connected somehow."_

_"Remember, I own it." He says with mock annoyance. "You pay me rent since that game you lost."_

_"You're a slob, D'Angelo." He grins, a full smile this time. "You stay that way. This world needs a scoundrel now and then."_

_"So they tell me."_

"Can I help you, sir?"

His head lifts, turning toward the voice. It's a young man - but doesn't everyone look young to him nowadays? - looking at him with a hopeful yet slightly concerned expression.

"Are you all right, sir?"

He blinks, bringing himself to the present, to the four walls of an overlooked antique store in a hole - in -the - wall town. He breathes in the faint musty odor of the building, the scent of happy memories, of attics and forgotten treasures rather than the metallic scent of blood and death.

"How much is it?"

The boy gestures to the small white tag.

"$45. A real bargain, too. It's in excellent condition considering when it's from."

"Who sold it, do you know?"

"An estate sale, probably." He smiles pleasantly. "Much of our antiques come from those. The owners pass away and with no descendants their belongings wind up here or other stores."

He runs an almost reverent hand over the typewriter.

"I was friends with the man who owned this. He was a correspondent in the war."

The clerk nods politely. He isn't interested, he knows, only paid to sell the antiques, not hear their history.

"I'll take it." The old man says softly.

The boy looks relieved, gathering up the typewriter and heading for the checkout counter. He turns it sideways to remove the tag and whistles at the gash left by the shrapnel.

"Must have gotten pretty close to the action."

The man says nothing, only hands him a check and picks up his purchase.

"Sir." The boy's voice stops him as he reaches for the door. "I'm sorry about your friend."

He turns back.

"It was all a long time ago."

As the man leaves the store the clerk thinks he hears him humming, an odd tune that startles him. It's an Italian melody that his grandfather used to sing to him when he was a child, a song he learned from a private who saved his life once in the war. He hasn't thought of it in years but he's certain it's the melody and shakes his head. It must be more common a tune than he thought, and the old man must have picked it up years ago.

It's just a song, after all.


	2. Mass Penny

_mass penny_: offering given by the faithful at the altar rail to help in the purchase of candles, wine, and bread used in the ceremonies of the Mass. (the Catholic dictionary)

_**Mass Penny**_

_"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."-Michelangelo_

He holds his first angel when he's eight. It's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, delicate features and glittered wings, and he wants more than anything in the world to buy one for his mother and bring it home for her to put on top of their tree.

He has little money, some bit of an allowance saved from when his father was still alive, but it's enough, and he watches with wide eyes as the salesclerk wraps it and hands it to him with a smile. He tucks it inside his coat, buttoning it to keep it inside, and runs the two blocks home.

His mother's worn face lights up when she sees it, gently ruffling his hair with one hand as her other one brushes the paper wings. He climbs up on a chair and puts it on their little tree, the tiny thing that's nearly devoid of decorations and has only a single strand of faded lights. There's no presents for him, but they sit beneath the tree and sing carols, his eyes fixed upon the angel perched above him, bobbing as if about to take flight.

It's the last Christmas he'll ever spend with his mother. Three weeks past New Years she comes down with pneumonia - overwork the doctor says -and is gone.

His grandmother on his father's side comes for Conley, and he packs everything he can in his only suitcase, the angel carefully set just inside. But the drive is bumpy and when he opens it in his new bedroom both the wings are broken off, the glitter spilled across his Sunday shirt.

But he keeps it, anyway.

oooOOOooo

The first time he meets an angel - flesh and blood instead of fabric - she has no wings but is even more beautiful than he'd imagined they'd look in person, soft brown hair and British accent.

He's never been one to give his heart quickly but he loves her the instant he sees her. She's a quiet, unassuming woman, the kind other men might pass on the street and never notice. But she listens to his words, not the ones he speaks but the ones he writes, and sees his heart.

Angels were never meant to be flesh and blood, and she's fragile, far more than the Christmas topper he won't part with. He's three streets from her house when the bombs fall, and he runs even as he knows it's too late. He holds her in his arms, a broken, delicate body, and he doesn't hear himself screaming until he's hoarse.

The day they bury her he takes the tree topper, and puts it in a box in the back of the closet. He doesn't look at it again.

oooOOOooo

The next angel he meets has no wings either, and isn't beautiful at all, the polar opposite of the last person he called that. It's a soldier, mud-streaked, rough-voiced, and used to survival, a Jersey City boy who can win the shirt off your back in blackjack and charm every girl within ten towns in any direction with an Italian love song. There's nothing truly remarkable about him and he might have slipped past him entirely if not for his name.

Pete D'Angelo. From the angel. It's deeply ironic somehow, a name like that in the filth and blood of Italy, following him here like the grip of a bulldog's teeth that he can't shake off.

Beneath the calloused exterior there's a gentleness, a compassion buried at first glance. Conley sees it, and it somehow gives him hope, as if that tiny, flickering whisper of decency is the last good thing in this war. And it makes him angry, because he knows that the world will try to rip it out of him, demand and cost him more because he cares more.

Everyone always said that when he was angry, he wrote better, transcending common essays and passing into the sublime. He writes his best articles in Italy.

oooOOOooo

That D'Angelo survives the first three months in Italy is no small miracle.

The grenade had exploded against his back as he'd pushed Lt. Kimbro out of the way, driving shrapnel into his ribs, arm, and leg. The partisans who found him couldn't remove it and the Germans who took him next wouldn't. By the time he'd been rescued infection had set into the wounds, leaving him delirious with fever and pain, unaware that he was safe. The surgeons at the field hospital had removed the shards but the infection was another story.

"I'll have to amputate." The doctor says flatly. He's done four amputations already today, seen at least that many men die without one. "Both the leg and arm to save his life."

It won't save his life, Conley knows. It will kill him, because without two arms he can't play his music, and his songs are life and breath to him, keeping him going beyond the point of endurance for most men. With his strength of will D'Angelo could overcome the loss of a leg with little effort, hardly the sort of man who'd feel sorry for himself. But without the arm he'd shrivel up inside, slowly dying by inches. And Conley can't watch that happen.

"No." The word leaves his mouth before he realizes he spoke, and Captain Benedict's eyes jerk sharply to meet his. "Surely you can wait for another day, to give him a chance."

The doctor hesitates, then nods. "One day. No more if you want to save his life."

He hasn't prayed since the Blitz but he tries, truly tries, but the words won't come. Instead he sits in a half-bombed little village church for six hours, hands folded, eyes staring at the wooden cross until they blur. Echoes of D'Angelo's voice whispering the Rosary filter through his mind but he doesn't know the words because he isn't Catholic. His hands tremble as he lights a candle and pulls money from his pocket for an offering on the altar. The coins lie silently, a mass penny for a man clinging to life by a thread.

It's morning when Hansen comes up behind him, footsteps echoing in the hollow walls, helmet clutched in his hand, and tells him, face weary but shining, that the fever has broken, the penicillin finally working on the infection, and that he'll keep both limbs as well as his life. Conley doesn't speak. He only lowers his head, silence the only prayer of gratitude he knows.

He thinks D'Angelo's luck is still with them, that the war will be over soon and their squad won't shed more blood. He never was good at guessing the holecard.

oooOOOooo

Two weeks before the last battle a bomb explodes inches from him, driving a shard of shrapnel deep into his typewriter. His guardian angel, or perhaps the one in flesh and uniform, saves their life, because he's unhurt and D'Angelo barely scratched.

A few days after that D'Angelo brings the typewriter back, repaired and good as new, the result of Gibson and his hours of work, marred only by a deep scar where the shrapnel struck, the machine blocking it from their bodies. He's so grateful for the machine back that he doesn't even notice D'Angelo isn't playing his guitar until he asks.

"It broke in the bombing." He says with a careless smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "But it doesn't matter. I'll get another one when the war's over."

"A better one." Conley adds, mentally promising himself that he'll buy it himself. But a chill crawls up his spine.

oooOOOooo

In the end, D'Angelo is the last casualty in their squad, the final man even wounded. They're dug in near a German bunker when he starts to throw a grenade and takes a round in the chest as Conley watches, stomach forcing it's way into his throat and heaving. D'Angelo jerks, horribly, and slides to the ground, landing face down in the dirt.

Somehow, they get him back, dragging him into the trenches and rolling him over as Conley's hands peel his clothes away from the injury. For an instant he's numb as Gibson, the scared, green kid, puts his hand across the wound, holding down as the blood spurts between his fingers. Conley's eyes go to Captain Benedict, and for a moment he thinks he won't order them back, not with that cold, vacant look in the officer's eyes. But he focuses and says the words, and Conley's hands grip under D'Angelo's arms, lifting him between the men, as they carry him off the field, the Captain's grip replacing Gibson's on the wound far too close to the heart.

Impossibly, he'll never know how, D'Angelo is still breathing when they reach the field hospital, painful rattles and gasps for air spaced between long silences, the pitiful struggle the only sign he's alive as the doctors start to work on him. It doesn't matter this time whether he'll be able to lift his arm and play a guitar or lose a leg because it's a question of whether or not he'll survive the night. All the men who can donate blood and Conley watches it trickle into D'Angelo's veins, even as he knows it isn't enough to replace all he lost.

No one expects him to live. It's one of the tragedies of war, Conley supposes, that a man learns in scant weeks to judge the hopeless from those who can be saved with the worn eyes of an aged surgeon, and even he can see it written across D'Angelo's face with every shallow breath and flickering heartbeat. Somewhere else there might have been a chance. But not here, and if he was a superstitious man he would have seen it coming, right from the moment his guitar broke, as if that simple wooden instrument contained D'Angelo's soul and very life.

One by one all the men leave: Lucavich for a few precious moments of sleep, Captain Benedict to receive orders, and Gibson, not by his own desire but because Conley sees the paleness and strain in the boy's face and sends him away. He should be working on his next article but he feels dry, as if all the words have been stripped from his bones and he's said far too much already. It's no longer important to write, not with men bleeding out and a friend dying beside him, a friend who'd die alone if he left, so he stays.

The days pass in a blur after that, like the bottom of a house of cards pulled free, sending a dozen scattering all around him. The war ends, quietly and quickly from where he is, because the dying don't celebrate when the rest of the world does. The men are discharged and wait to be shipped home, and D'Angelo is still alive, forcing each ragged breath of air through a damaged chest. There's still no hope, even if he's fought this long, because the human body is fragile and can only survive so much before his strength is drained.

Conley finds work at the hospital, not the empty, seemingly useless writing, but bathing and feeding and carrying stretchers as the less wounded ship home and the others struggle to gain enough strength to join them. The hands that join him belong to a young nurse, an Italian girl who speaks only a few words of English and tends to D'Angelo tenaciously, as if she's capable of single-handedly holding death back until he's able to fight for himself.

Conley loses track of time, a pall-bearer waiting for a man to die, only he doesn't. One day the breathing eases, the next his heartbeat strengthens, and finally he opens his eyes and asks where he is in a rusty whisper.

That night, after the doctor has looked at D'Angelo, smiled, and said "he's out of the woods", Conley sits on the edge of his cot and weeps.

He thinks it's the first time he's cried in longer than he can remember.

oooOOOooo

He finds the house easily and walks up to it, steps slow and deliberate. He hesitates for only a moment before knocking, and she comes to the door, D'Angelo's wife, the Italian nurse from the hospital. The screen door opens and her face lights, words tumbling out in a mixture of English and Italian as she clasps his hand, pulling him inside. She calls, drawing back, and he comes down the stairs, stepping close until he's right in front of him.

He's thinner than he was, cheekbones sharp against the planes of his face, hair slightly longer. The olive tones of his skin are no longer tanned and weathered from the constant heat of an Italian sun, the scars fading into white. But he's well and strong and _alive_.

"Conley." His roughened voice is gentle, filled with the weight of memories and shared tragedies. His hand extends, stopping halfway. And then his arms are around Conley's shoulders, pulling him into a tight hug as Conley's hands grip his back. D'Angelo pulls away first and Conley looks behind his shoulder to see his wife at the foot of the stairs, an infant in her arms. She smiles, faintly, holding out the baby, until Conley takes her.

She settles in his arms, snuggling against him as if she somehow knows him, trusts him, and he looks down into the small features. She has D'Angelo's eyes, black and bottomless and bright with life, as vivid as her father's were the day he first met him.

She's light in his arms, dark eyes wide and fathoms deep, staring up into his face with the innocence of only the very young, those who have never seen a war or yet learned the meaning of the word. He closes his eyes and it comes rushing over him, the explosions against the darkness muffled by the sound of dice cracking against a helmet, shuffled cards and dogtags, the orphan children staring at him with hollow eyes, the weight of a soldier's gun on his back, whispered singing over a guitar _wherever I may go, whatever I may do, till the end of time..._, the whiteness of Gibson's face frozen with fear, and his own hands slick with D'Angelo's blood.

Her tiny fingers curl around his thumb and his eyes open, finding his cheeks wet with tears.

"She's beautiful." He says quietly, and D'Angelo takes her, kissing the soft hair before handing her to his wife. D'Angelo turns back to him, and his eyes are bright, not dull as they were in those last days before his last wound.

"You still have my old typewriter?" D'Angelo asks and Conley smiles in spite of himself at the old joke between them, nodding.

"I must owe you a fortune by now in back rent."

A faint smile brushes D'Angelo's lips but he doesn't tease, only stretches out his hand as Conley's grasps it.

"Paid in full." D'Angelo says, quietly, and there's a hundred unspoken words of gratitude within his eyes, for a friendship forged in the furnace of Italy, for donated blood and held arteries, a name in the newspaper, and a friend who stayed with him in the hospital. "You come back, anytime."

"I will." His hand drops, and they step apart. No, he amends, not apart. No one who's been through a war together are ever truly apart. But for now he'll go back to his world, the apartment, the job he's been offered at the newspaper, and D'Angelo will go on in his, with his wife and daughter, rebuilding everything he's lost. Conley leaves the house, glancing back only once, shrugging his shoulders, finding them strangely unburdened, the sun warm against his back, and the ground devoid of mud and blood.

He thinks later, when it's quiet, he'll pull out the old typewriter. And he'll write.


	3. Entertaining Strangers

**_Entertaining Strangers_**

_"In their eyes as they pass is not hatred, not excitement, not despair, not the tonic of their victory - there is just the simple expression of being here as though they had been here doing this forever, and nothing else." - Ernie Pyle_

I knew it was hopeless the instant I set eyes on the man they were bringing in.

I'm a nurse and not a surgeon but I knew it was impossible that the mangled lump of bloodied flesh, bone, and ragged uniform would survive another hour and I could tell by the grim look of resignation on the young Captain's face who helped carry the stretcher in that my opinion was shared. I'd seen enough dying men to know.

The doctor looked anyway, pulling aside the tattered fabric and attempting to find the most severe of the countless wounds peppering his torso, before rising and starting to shake his head. And then he saw the soldier standing behind the Captain.

If the angel of death had a face it would be this one - set in stone, determined, a man ready to kill half the hospital to ensure his friend got treatment judging from the white-knuckled grip on his gun. He was covered in the wounded man's blood, streaked with mud and filth and gore, looking like something from a nightmare, anger rolling in waves from his shoulders.

The doctor, a quiet man and far too sensitive and caring for the work he needed to do, ordered the wounded man be carried to surgery, and I inwardly seethed at the wasted time on a dying man, time that could have saved other, less hopeless men.

The Angel of Death hovered beside the stretcher until the doctor and I began cutting away the rags and then stood against the door just outside, facing the room with an unreadable expression.

The damage was unimaginable. Shrapnel fragments had torn deep into his chest, ribs, and upper legs, metal shards protruding like needles from a pincushion. The doctor worked each and every one free of the bloodied flesh, the plasma a feeble attempt to strip the chalky blue color from his skin.

His breathing was in shallow gasps, forced between pale lips in the lined face, and even with so much damage it occurred to me that the soldier was older than most...but then again half of the boys here were old before their time, with men not yet thirty showing silver streaks through their hair. War aged a man regardless of the number of his years.

Against all odds and predictions I made, the man survived the surgery and they carried him, swathed in bandages, to the nearest bed - _a bed that another man who wasn't dying could have used instead of having to lie on the floor_. The Angel of Death was at his bedside the instant he came out, sitting cross-legged on the floor as no chairs were available, dark eyes almost daring me to try to make him move. He didn't speak, and asked for nothing, so I simply ignored him, tending to the other patients.

He stayed an hour, not moving except to flick his eyes over to the wounded man every few seconds, never uttering a sound. Finally he stood up and walked out of the room without looking back, leaving a crimson smear on the floor from his uniform.

I washed it off.

Another nurse, I learned later, was able to get something out of the Angel of Death and conveyed to me that the nearly lifeless mummy in the bed was a war correspondent, Mr. Conley Wright, attached to the soldier's division. I wondered fleetingly why a private would care about a reporter, since it seemed the men would consider the weaponless writer to be an albatross, slowing them down, getting in the way, and unable to pull his own weight.

Mr. Conley Wright lived through the rest of the day and the night, defeating even the most optimistic of our predictions, and was still breathing as morning came.

I glanced up in time to see the soldier enter the room.

He was cleaned and shaved, uniform stained but washed, and if it wasn't for the look in his eyes I don't think I would have recognized him. He was younger than I'd thought yesterday, the still soft planes of his face hidden beneath a scruffy beard and caked mud. He held a guitar in one hand, and only glanced at me before turning his focus on his wounded friend.

He came over to Mr. Wright's bed and sat on the floor, balancing the guitar on his knees and stroking the strings in the first notes of some bluesy melody. I bristled at the unwanted noise, hurrying over and standing in front of him.

"This isn't a pool hall, Private...?"

He looked up, and for the first time I got a good look at his eyes. They were large and even deeply set they were forward, the color of pitch and unreadable. Unusual eyes.

"D'Angelo, ma'am." His voice was rough, almost hoarse, words quick and brushed with the faintest bit of an accent, with a hardened edge bordering on unpleasant. "Pete D'Angelo."

From the angel. If any names had been handed out appropriately it was this one, bestowed on a vengeful wingless sort of being.

"Italian, then."

"Jersey City, actually." He pulled off his helmet, shifting it under his arm. "My parents were born in the town right next to here, though, married in the church by the square."

"About the guitar." I cut back to my original concern. "You can't play in here and disturb the patients."

"I was only thinking he might hear me." He said quietly. "He liked the sound of music to dull the gunfire."

My chest clenched and I forced the sympathy away. There was no sense wasting it on a battle-hardened veteran with blood still staining his shirt.

"How did this happen?"

I gestured to the wounded man.

"A grenade." His voice thickened, pitch deeper than before as a muscle in his jaw jumped. "We couldn't get to him before it exploded and he was caught on some wire."

I could see the horror, the helplessness in his eyes, and I felt a foreign rush of pity I didn't know I still possessed.

He misinterpreted the object of the feeling.

"The pain goes away after a while, ma'am. I took a grenade in the back once and I was on my feet again in just a few weeks."

It made little sense to me that a man would come so close to dying - I'd seen enough grenade victims to know he was lying about the pain - and willingly return to active duty, but I said nothing.

He shifted position, laying the guitar beside him and humming softly instead. I wondered how old he was, really. Twenties? Older? Younger? I pushed aside my questions and returned to the other patients.

oooOOOooo

The days passed quietly with little change. And then one of the others in the hospital, an eighteen year old boy, died in the night. He wasn't even that badly injured, the doctors had given him an excellent chance, and I inwardly screamed at the worthlessness, the sickening _waste_ of a child thrown into a war before he'd had a chance to grow up.

D'Angelo turned up as I was making over the boy's empty bed, walking to Mr. Wright and staring down at the motionless figure laid in the bed.

"How is he, really?" His voice was tentative, frail hope etched into each word.

"Chances are he won't live." My tone was stiff, never cruel nor kind, simply empty and riddled with too many dying men. "If he does he may be too ill to leave his bed. We don't know how much damage was done to his lungs or heart or other organs."

He looked up at me, those black eyes huge in his face.

"Are you all right, ma'am?"

"It's foolish." I said bluntly, tone harsh as I slammed the pillow against the bed. "Hundreds of good men dying in a war, risking their lives and killing men they don't even know, coming back in pieces. But at least they believe they have a noble cause. But a newspaper reporter comes out here, getting in the way, getting himself killed for what? For a few words on paper that no one will even read?"

Something flashed in those eyes. I'd lit off the powder keg.

"You may not read them, ma'am." His voice was strained, dangerously low. "But somewhere there's people reading his words, and fifty years from now, when this war is over and we're old or gone, the words will still be there. People will be reading them and remembering what we did here. You know why, ma'am? Because Conley doesn't write about noble causes or politics of war. He writes about us - me, Captain Benedict, Gibson, and a hundred like us. Common soldiers that most people back home won't ever think of. But Conley tells them what we see, how we fight and live and die. He shows them that everyone - no matter whether he's a captain or a buck private, a soldier or a civilian - is a human being, worth more than the 98 cents they say we are. We're flesh and blood and bone and spirit, not faceless and nameless statistics on a draft card. And we die so people back home won't have to live under the Nazis, so little kids can walk to school in the morning without worrying about bombs dropping on their heads."

His face was flushed red, eyes shooting sparks. I was suddenly mute, unable to form any sort of reply. But he didn't demand one. Instead he stood up, patted Conley's shoulder gently, and walked out of the hospital.

oooOOOooo

I half expected not to see him the next day, but he was there as usual, next to Mr. Wright's bed, talking quietly to the man as if he could hear him.

I came to him finally, stopping at the foot of the bed.

"D'Angelo." His head lifted slightly at the sound of my voice but he didn't look at me. "I...I apologize for what I said yesterday."

He met my eyes.

"Its all right, ma'am. There's a lot of people who think that way. I sometimes talk too much." His voice was quiet, strained.

"No, it isn't all right." I pressed the issue. "I truly was wrong. I suppose if you see too many wounded and dying men you forget the worth of one. They all come together, and you start to forget each and every one as a separate man and it's wrong. You should never cheapen life."

His eyes went soft, the effect startling as his features smoothed, losing some of the hard set that made him look so fierce.

"Thank you for that, ma'am."

I sat down beside him. I'd sat up with Mr. Wright most of the night as a fever climbed. Infection had set into the wounds.

The vigil had given me time to think, for the first time since the war began. I had thought of the sea of faces, the dying and dead men we'd attempted to help, the boys we'd painstakingly nursed back to health only to return them to the war and have them die in the next battle.

But within those faces I'd seen a few others, ones I'd never focused on before, the men we'd sent home, the men who would return to battle but would survive the carnage. For the first time in I didn't know how long I saw a point to it all, a small percentage that we had saved that seemed to make it worth it. I saw the humanity in the faceless line of dogtags and bandaged bodies.

"The only true wisdom is in knowing..."

"...you know nothing." He finished.

I started, eyeing him with an expression of skepticism.

"You know Socrates?"

He gave a smile across between a smirk and humor. "Jersey City isn't the end of the earth, ma'am. We read there, too."

I felt slightly foolish and put aback. The boy knew how to raise my hackles, that was certain. Before I could give a sharp retort his mouth smoothed out, face changing.

"I read every book in the library, as a kid, at least twice. I used to dream about all the places in them - Arabia with Aladdin's lamp, the Caribbean with a pirate ship loaded with gold. I dreamed a lot about Italy, too, from the stories my parents told."

He looked younger, almost vulnerable, as if the harsh exterior had been peeled away like a callous, leaving raw skin in the open. There were layers to him, I realized, that I hadn't seen at first glance.

I don't think we became friends after that, at least not in the conventional sense, but D'Angelo and I had a sort of understanding, a meeting place between us where our two different outlooks crossed.

His world was beyond mine, a giant war that I hated with every fiber of my being, a place where he killed men without batting an eye, and where men tried to kill him. My world was the hospital where I only saw the wreckage of war, the aftermath and not what led up to it. And yet somehow there was a tenderness in him, buried beneath the violence, that I had never had, a goodness that I had doubted the existence of.

And even if we didn't understand one another, we respected each other.

oooOOOooo

He stayed the rest of the day, bathing Conley's forehead with cool clothes, and even helping around the hospital.

I would never have thought it but his whistling brought life to the hospital, and some of the more alert men spotted his guitar and begged him for a tune.

I watched him reach for his guitar as the fever raged, then glance at me for permission. I gave a curt nod, and he strummed the chords, humming softly, before starting to sing.

I suppose, based upon his speaking voice, I'd expected a harsh whisky baritone. Instead his voice was somewhat higher, rich and full, scraping all the rust off and leaving him with a softness I hadn't imagined could be present. It was an odd, haunting sort of tune, and his voice fell and rose with the words of undying love and true romance, Italian perfectly accented and pure.

He had the voice of an angel.

oooOOOooo

It was two days later when I went to check on Mr. Wright, touched his forehead, and found normal, cool skin. His eyes slowly drifted open, clear blue struggling to focus on me.

I called for the doctor and as Mr. Wright feebly asked how long it had been, the surgeon confirmed what I'd suspected, but doubted. The man was on the mend, and going to live.

I saw D'Angelo coming and went to meet him at the door. His eyes flickered over my face, searching for an answer.

"Conley?"

"Awake." I smiled despite myself. "The fever broke and the doctor says he's going to live."

Whatever reaction I'd expected wasn't the one I received. I saw tears spring to D'Angelo's eyes, and he blinked rapidly to keep them at bay. Otherwise he simply stood there, motionless. After a long time he squared his shoulders and gave a quick nod.

"Thank you, ma'am."

He brushed past me, heading toward the ward, and for the first time since the war began I felt a stirring of warmth in the frigid corners of my heart, as if a bit of the packing string entwining it had been cut, freeing a little bit of me.

It was a good feeling.

oooOOOooo

It was a week later when the doctors decided that Conley was well enough to send home. He was still weak, almost fragile in appearance, but healing and he would make a full recovery. I didn't know it then but the war was over for him, as the church bells would ring out the end of the war before he was strong enough to return.

D'Angelo was waiting beside the ambulance, holding something, and I watched as he grasped Conley's hand, words too low to hear. The older man smiled faintly and D'Angelo took the sack off his back and placed it in beside him. I caught a glimpse of a battered typewriter before he stepped back and the ambulance doors closed.

He crossed the ground to me, climbing the first step to stand level with my height a step above him. He took off his helmet, the sea breeze tugging at his dark hair, and for the second time I was reminded of how young he still was, and how wrongly I'd misjudged him that first day.

"Goodbye, ma'am." He said quietly, roughened voice oddly gentle.

He took my hand in his, large fingers closing around mine, and I felt I should say something very important, a flourishing line or a set of beautiful words. But little came to me, certainly nothing to match the maternal warmth I swallowed down before it registered in my face.

"You stay safe, Pete."

He smiled then, a real smile. I think, if I had ever had a son, I would have wanted him to be much like this soldier.

"I will."

He let go of my hand and hurried down the steps, whistling that tune of his all the way, and I couldn't help but think that if he'd had wings attached to those shoulders he would have looked something like an angel.

And out of all the faces I never forgot his.


	4. Patches Of Sunlight

**_Patches Of Sunlight_**

_"Our most difficult task as a friend is to offer understanding when we don't understand." - Robert Brault_

The first time he visits the veterans' hospital it's one month and five days since the war ended.

He finds the bed quickly, standing awkwardly beside it, forcing himself to study the pale face against the pillow. Swathed in bandages with only his closed eyes exposed, Sam looks fragile and weak, but otherwise normal, and he tells himself that the doctors are wrong, that as soon as he wakes up everything will be as it was, they're home, they're safe, ready to start new lives.

But somewhere in the middle of his thoughts Sam's eyes drift open and he holds his breath, his own eyes pinned to his friend's face, waiting for the sloppy smile, the "why're you staring at me? Trying to get fresh or something?", anything that will tell him that Sam, the Sam Hansen who's his best, his only friend, is still in there.

But the eyes flicker past him, bouncing across the walls, looking at nothing and everything at once and his stomach clenches like a bayonet slicing through him, cutting him in two, as he knows deep inside, in the pit of him, that the doctors are right, that his Sam is gone. Oh he lives and breathes, heart beating, organs functioning, but everything that made him Sam has been shattered and erased with the entrance and exit of a bullet splintering the side of his skull. He's gone forever.

Lucavich doesn't stay long.

The second time he visits the hospital it's six weeks since the war ended and he's prepared himself better this time, resigned himself to what he'll see.

They've bundled Sam into a wheelchair, back to the window, and the bandages are gone now, allowing him to see where the doctors shaved his hair to the scalp and cut into him in an attempt to save his life. The jagged wound is beginning to heal, leaving a thickly corded scar behind. It's disturbing and he can't look at it.

He tries to block out the memories of his childhood, of Mrs. Peterson going away _committed, was touched in the head_, of the little boy down the street who _wasn't right in the head, poor child, his poor mother having to care for a baby forever_, and of the insults thrown carelessly around, giggled terms that seem so caustic now.

He sits on the bed next to his friend and talks of things occurring beyond the gray walls of this place that has become Sam's home and prison, of people they used to know, of his girl that he'll marry any day now, and even of the job he's gotten. Anything and everything to cover up the silence and the horrible vacant look in Sam's eyes.

And all the time he talks he silently mourns the loss of a man still living.

The third time he visits the hospital it's eight weeks since the war ended and he finally works up the nerve to touch him.

He was afraid to at first, haunted by the memory of Sam lying broken and bloody on the field, of his own hands coming up to cover and hold down on the gaping wound as it gushes crimson between his fingers, of Captain Benedict yelling at him in a hoarse and strained voice, and the _knowing_ that's it's bad.

Later on he was frightened, afraid of the reaction he might receive. There might be jerking in the limbs, the doctors had warned, muscle spasms. In time he may walk a little, move his arms and hands almost normally. Physically he may be as he was within the year.

Only his mind will forever be altered, lost and buried in the bloody mud of Italy like amputated arms and legs or forgotten canteens. He's a child again, they say, five years old at best.

Lucavich remembers being five only faintly. He and Sam were towheaded sticky fingered kids then, learning A B Cs and snitching candy. They understood little, their world consisting of toy soldiers and popsicle stick forts. He can't think of Sam like that.

He touches him gently, knowing the wounds have almost completely healed, and yet uncertain if a rougher grasp may harm him. He waits for a twitch, a jerking limb, a trembling wave of a hand as Sam, tucked up somewhere behind those empty eyes, struggles to make himself known.

But the hand beneath his never moves, skin cool and still.

And after a while his own hand falls back limp to his side.

The fourth time he visits the hospital it's three months since the war ended and he hasn't seen Sam in almost a month of that time.

He doesn't talk or sit down this time, only paces uncertainly, glancing out of the corners of his eyes every now and then to notice that Sam's eyes are bouncing after him, jerking every few seconds in their path. The uneven pattern sends a lump in his throat that threatens to choke him as Sam looks almost normal except for those eyes and that hideous scar, and for an instant he can pretend, imagine as it were, that nothing has changed, that it's an ordinary day and he's simply visiting a recovering friend and not a man who will never get any better than he is now.

For the first and only time he wishes -a fleeting wish - that Sam hadn't lived to the field hospital, that he'd been killed instantly in that battle. And then he remembers the sounds of the night around him, the feel of his best friend dying in his arms, the murmured whispers of D'Angelo saying the Rosary _pray for us sinners in the hour of our deaths_, the shelling in the distance, the rocking of the truck, and his own frantic pleas _let him live, just let him live_, and he hates himself for even thinking it.

But he doesn't touch him.

The fifth time he visits the hospital it's more duty than compassion, a ritualistic duty he's been performing for half a year now, the weekly hour of one-sided conversation across a colorless room.

But this time he thinks about Sam, little five year old Sam, and he brings Lucky along with him, the little flop-eared mutt who only understands German commands that only Sam could say.

He places the dog on Sam's lap, sitting next to him and noticing almost absently that the wheelchair is gone, replaced by a hard-backed wooden chair, Sam's feet tangled behind the rungs, toe tips scuffed as if he's been dragging his feet. He remembers how Sam used to scuff up his shoes as a child, and how his mother scolded him, and he smiles despite himself, the first shadow of a smile in all the times he's been here.

Sam's hands, jerky and clumsy, gently pat the dog's head, reaching down his back to tangle in the soft fur. Lucavich doubts that he recognizes the dog, or has any memory at all of finding him or the endless weeks of marching, carrying the dog in his arms so he wouldn't have to be left behind.

He brought the animal home and cares for Lucky now, the only thing he can do for Sam, and he notes with a faint sense of satisfaction that the dog seems to comfort him. He even laughs when the mutt starts licking all over Sam's face.

And then Sam looks up, and grins, a sideways, impish, childish grin of a five year old boy, and he stops laughing, heart twisting into a knot and plummeting to the bottom of his stomach until he thinks he'll be ill.

He doesn't laugh again.

The sixth time he visits the hospital he's missed three visits, telling himself Sam doesn't notice and he can't stand to be in there, to look at what's happened to the man who was his best friend, as close as a brother to him.

It's summer, muggy and filled with sunshine, and Sam is perched on the steps of the hospital, face upturned to the sun, drinking in the rays. Lucavich stops at the first step, watching him only a moment before starting to turn and leave.

"Ernie?"

He stops short, breath hitching in his chest with a suffocating force.

"Ernie?"

It's garbled, a mockery of Sam's voice, so frail, the first sound he's heard him utter since the day he carried him into the field hospital. He turns back.

The eyes are still a little boy's, and he knows they always will be. Nothing has changed, nothing will get better. It isn't the moment in movies when the man comes out of a coma and speaks. This is real life and there won't be any happy ending.

But within those childish eyes there's the trace of tears.

"Ernie? Stay?"

He walks slowly to the porch, as if bearing something heavy, steps sluggish, eyes down. He stops when he reaches the scuffed tips of Sam's shoes.

Sam holds up his hand, revealing a rubber ball and a cluster of sweaty jacks.

"Play?"

It tears his heart out. He sinks to the step, covers his face with his hand and starts to sob, shoulders shaking. A pair of hands come around him. Lucavich lifts his head.

"Ernie? Don't. Be. Sad."

Each word is slowly formed. But the little boy eyes hold an aching sadness. He reaches up and makes himself touch those sticky hands, pat them as he would a child.

"It's okay, Sam."

The tears fade, a smile brushing his friend's face.

"Play?"

He studies the jacks for a long moment.

"Okay, Sam."

As they play, Lucavich looks at Sam, truly looks at him, past the five year old eyes and the jagged scar, into the face and into the heart. And somewhere within, beyond the memories, the knowledge, his own heart starts to warm. It's still Sam, changed yes, but Sam. Still his best friend forever, and nothing can change that.

He goes for fives and Sam lets out a shriek of delight when he accomplishes it.

He thinks it will be okay. It will take time, and a lot of heartache. It won't be the same, but he knows Sam's worth every ounce of the tears he'll shed.

He can still be best man at his wedding, they can still fish together, still walk in the sunshine and talk of nothing in particular. It doesn't matter that he can't understand everything, that he'll be a child forever and Lucavich will remember who he was before he became so young. It doesn't matter because he's still Sam.

And someday, soon he thinks, he'll build on a room in his house for Sam, to take care of him.

After all, that's what friends are for.


End file.
